Presidential campaign for Senator Barack Obama

The United Auto Workers (UAW) represents people that perform in all sectors of the economy.

In 2012 former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine ran for the US Senate.

CWA

Communication Workers of America is the largest telecommunication union in the world

For the Communications Workers of America, Stones’ Phones deployed a series of automated patch through calls targeting Cablevision subscribers who lived in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. The CWA had been engaged in a prolonged bargaining fight with Cablevision, which has historically been unresponsive when it comes to worker’s rights. The goal of the program was to bring consumers into the fight for a more equitable and receptive Cablevision, by not only providing refunds to Cablevision subscribers who lost their service as a result of Hurricane Sandy but also by educating consumers on the substandard working conditions supported by Cablevision executives. Over a seven day span, Stones’ Phones called nearly 30,000 New York City residents and directed close to 5,000 individuals directly to Cablevision for refunds.

Human Rights Campaign

Stones’ Phones deployed a series of Telephone Town Halls targeted to HRC members to get them wired into the 2012 campaign and raising money to support marriage equality efforts. After the election, Stones’ Phones hosted a Telephone Town Hall inviting 40,000 HRC members to a post-election “summit and debrief” with HRC President Chad Griffin, White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan, Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) and NAACP President Ben Jealous. The program also featured an automated message inviting people to join from singer and activist, Cyndi Lauper. The purpose of the call was to have a high level debrief with leaders of the LGBT equality movement and allied groups to help build support for future fights. We also took questions live from participating HRC members. In April of 2013, The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) awarded this initiative a Silver Pollie in recognition of the innovative program.

Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is working internationally to protect ecologically vital lands & waters.

In 2012, Governor Tom Corbett proposed the largest cut for conservation funding in Pennsylvania history by removing the Keystone Recreation, Parks and Conservation Fund from the 2012-2013 budget. Since its almost unanimous approval by the General Assembly in 1993, the Fund has had a massive impact on local communities, helping them preserve facilities in Pennsylvania’s award-winning state parks, expand local libraries, create hundreds of trails and protect community green spaces. Diverting the funds from Keystone would have crippled thousands of local conservation projects. The Pennsylvania Nature Conservancy wanted to bring this cut to the public’s attention, so they contacted Stones’ Phones.

Because the budget had to pass the State Senate in Pennsylvania, we created a Live Patch-Through program targeting five key Republican Senators: Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-9), Senator Senator Jake Corman (R-34), Stewart Greenleaf (R-12), Senator Bob Mensch (R-24) and Senator Tommy Tomlinson (R-6). The program focused on connecting constituents who lived in areas where the Keystone Fund made major contributions to their communities with the State Senators who wanted to cut the fund. In the script for the Patch-Through, we briefly outlined the special role the Fund has played in natural areas close to the targeted group to make them more passionate about saving the Keystone Fund. The people we talked to were so enthusiastic that we were able to connect a full 17% of them with their Senator.

One week after we started the Live Patch-Through program, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a revised version of the Governor’s FY 2012-13 budget that included the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund. Senate Majority Leader Pileggi championed the budget and even publicly announced the Keystone Fund as a major component of his revisions. His recommendation held as Governor Corbett signed the budget into law just before midnight on June 30th. While The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania employed other techniques to generate support, the targeted Senators clearly heard the message from their constituents; all five of the Senators voted for the budget, preserving the $38 million devoted to the Keystone Fund.

NCPSSM

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare

During the 2012 Presidential Campaign, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare wanted to engage independent Senior Voters in swing Presidential States in a discussion about the Paul Ryan Plan. The Committee’s president, their legislative team and grassroots director held Telephone Town Halls in nine states over five nights and were able to speak directly to 750,000 registered independents and unaffiliated voters.

The response was incredible. An average of 300 voters wanted to ask questions on each call, and voters overwhelmingly rejected the Ryan Plan with over 87% of voters saying they questioned the Romney ticket because Ryan was on the ticket. The calls to voters drove massive traffic to the Committee’s website. The program gave the Committee 36,000 new potential donors to follow-up with.

Obama 2008

Presidential campaign for Senator Barack Obama

We care deeply about the quality of our call programs and do everything we can to make sure they are executed perfectly. In 2008, the Obama Presidential Campaign reached out to Stones’ Phones to participate in a large scale test of the quality of our call centers. Ten phone firms participated in the Obama campaign’s testing which Jon Carson, the National Field Director of the Obama campaign, likened to the reality show competition Survivor.

At the beginning of every week the campaign would send us a list of VAN IDs, phone numbers, and voters’ names along with the latest version of the ID script. Included in the script was a question asking the voter what year they were born. After we finished the week’s round of calls, we would upload the final data back to the Obama campaign, who matched the voters’ responses we gathered to their actual dates of birth. After a month of testing, Stones’ Phones was one of five firms who met the Obama campaign’s rigorous quality check. Stones’ Phones worked for the Obama campaign in Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon, and North Dakota. Alongside our ID calls, we ran voter registration, GOTV, and vote-by-mail ballot chase programs. On Election Night 2008, many Stones’ Phones staffers celebrated in front of the White House, proud of the work we did to help elect President Obama.

Planned Parenthood

During the 2009 national health care debate, pro-choice and pro-life groups were working to make sure their interests were included in the final health care bill. Multiple amendments limiting (or expanding) abortion rights were debated and Planned Parenthood needed to mobilize their members quickly to communicate with key Senate offices.

The goal was to connect legislative offices with their constituents who wanted to ensure that abortion was not banned from public and private insurance plans. Stones’ Phones wanted this information to get beyond the people answering the main phone lines so we targeted each office with bursts of calls so that legislative staff not normally assigned to the phones would hear from Planned Parenthood supporters.

During this call program we connected nearly 1,500 Planned Parenthood supporters to eight legislative offices over two days. The call prompted unprecedented levels of participation -- almost a third of the people we contacted agreed to be patched through to the legislative targets.

Thrivent

As a mission-driven financial firm, Thrivent aims to help their members become more informed about their spending habits. In this spirit they launched the “Do One Thing Differently” awareness campaign. The organization developed resources to help people take simple steps to improve their financial wellness and create a sustainable life style. Stones’ Phones held a series of Telephone Town Halls with Thrivent leaders including CEO Brad Hewitt and former NBC Financial Editor of the Today Show Jean Chatzky to promote their campaign and get members involved in generating creative and useful money saving ideas.

United Auto Workers

The United Auto Workers (UAW) represents people that perform in all sectors of the economy.

With tens of thousands of the United Auto Workers’ members in Illinois’ 17th District, the UAW needed a way to quickly identify their most important persuasion targets so their ground operation could be more effective in Cheri Bustos’ Congressional campaign.

Our goal was to locate UAW members who supported Cheri Bustos or were undecided and collect data that would let us prioritize targets for further outreach. We launched a live ID call that not only asked about the member’s preference in the campaign but also asked how many people outside their households or union hall the member spoke with about political issues. And we also asked every supporter if they would be willing to volunteer.

The benefits of this campaign were twofold. First, we were able to identify “Influential” members of the UAW (those who talk to more people) as well as new volunteers for the campaign. This allowed us to help grow the campaign’s ground game and better target the high-value Influentials with in-person communications. Second, the UAW was able to add significant long-term value to their member and voter file – they now know who the buzz-builders are among their members in this district

Representative Cheri Bustos currently represents the 17th Congressional District of Illinois in Congress.

Tim Kaine

In 2012 former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine ran for the US Senate.

In October 2012, Stones’ Phones held a series Telephone Town Halls with former Governor Tim Kaine during his campaign to be the next U.S. Senator from Virginia. The event featured remarks from Gov. Kaine’s campaign manager, Mike Henry, and was billed as a “Campaign Briefing” with current and former donors.

The event featured the candidate fielding questions throughout the call from supporters who had pressed 0 on their phone’s keypad to ask a question. Participants could also press 7 to connect with a campaign volunteer and contribute during the event. In addition, participants on the call were asked, “Would you donate to my campaign? Press 1 to donate $25, press 2 to donate $50, press 3 to donate $100, or press 4 to donate $250.” Those who pledged to donate were followed up with by volunteers to complete the gift. All told, this campaign broke records with now Senator Kaine garnering over $10,000 in pledges during the event and collecting an additional $21,000 after.